Google Home

[sesevans]

I wish they'd do a more expensive version with a better speaker, or even license it so other manufactures could just chuck the tech in their speakers. I know you can link it up with other speakers but its not quite as tidy a solution.

So your "wish" has begun to be answered it seems with yesterday's announced introduction of a few new speakers from Anker, Panasonic and Mobvoi because Google has opened up the Google Assistant SDK to permit anyone to embed GA into almost anything. As far as hardware is concerned, GA is getting embedded into more and more attractively priced products, but I would like to see more devs taking up the software side because the Google AI that sits behind all this hardware seems very impressive.

At the moment, when I finish my day with the Nest Thermostat, the Philips Hue lightbulbs, the IFTTT enabled smart kettle and hopefully soon the connection to a vacuum cleaner, a sprinkler and LG appliances such as a washer, a dryer, a dishwasher, etc (announced tie-ups yesterday), I have to still give individual instructions to Google Home to regulate each smart device. I would like to see better and smarter software integration where I can control all these devices at the same time with one voice command---eg, OK Google good morning means the device knows what devices I want to automatically start-up knowing my history of individual actions before or similarly what I want closed or put on timer in the evening when I say OK Google, goodnight. I assume that as more and more hardware gets integrated with GH, there will be more of this need?

 

[mark43]

Excellent, that's exactly what I was hoping for.

 

[sesevans]

Excellent, that's exactly what I was hoping for.

And you can now add JBL's LINK series of speakers that are incorporating Google Assistant into their LINK 10, LINK 20 and LINK 300 speakers. The 10 and 20 are portable speakers.

 

[sesevans]

Talk now is that in the US, Google has reached a deal with LG to bundle a free Google Home with every purchase of an LG appliance---LG is a leader in consumer durables such as air conditioners, refrigerators, freezers, ovens, etc. The Korean conglomerate is already an Android partner with Google. Google is clearly attempting to place Google Assistant everywhere.

Will be interesting to see if Google bundles Google Home with appliances and other products for the smart home in the UK too.

 

[sesevans]

Google Home Mini expected to be announced on 4 October with picture leaked on Droid Life today. US cost $ 49. Colours chalk, coral and charcoal:

http://www.droid-life.com/2017/09/19/google-home-mini-exclusive/

 

[sesevans]

On my Google Home I just received the new functionality called Reminders. I can set reminders, ask about them and delete them. I understand "Location" Reminders are "coming soon."

When you get the Reminder prompt, you can say "Ok Google, what's up?"

I am glad Google finally included Reminders on Home, as it was already available on my Pixel. Useful now when I am not near my phone and clearly it will be an important feature when it is introduced on Third Party made Google Homes (already announced by Sony, JBL, etc) and when built into appliances.

 

[Scam]

Google Home Mini expected to be announced on 4 October with picture leaked on Droid Life today. US cost $ 49. Colours chalk, coral and charcoal:

http://www.droid-life.com/2017/09/19/google-home-mini-exclusive/

Cool. What is likely to be the downside of a Mini rather than a full Home? Just the speaker quality? For someone who will be Chromecasting music to a full hifi set-up, I can't see why I wouldn't get a Mini

 

[glenimp617]

Yeah I'll be getting a handful of minis if they are £50

 

[sesevans]

Cool. What is likely to be the downside of a Mini rather than a full Home? Just the speaker quality? For someone who will be Chromecasting music to a full hifi set-up, I can't see why I wouldn't get a Mini

I would assume the speaker quality, esp as a leak/rumour today suggests Google will be introducing a high-end Google Home "Max" to compete with the likes of Sonos in terms of acoustic quality. Read the following from "9to5 Google" source today:

"We’re not sure on its feature set or design, but we’re told it has stereo speakers, which likely means a singular unit with dual mid-range drivers and perhaps a single tweeter — or some similar setup. In terms of its outer appearance, we’re only told that it’s “premium” in both design and materials."

 

[Scam]

Yeah. So basically I couldn't care less about speaker quality. I'm always going to be casting to a proper hifi

Maybe if the normal Home price drops I might get one for upstairs (no hifi), but in the lounge I doubt it's worth it for me. I'd imagine the speaker in the Mini is still pretty damn good for hearing the Assistant anyway.

 

[sesevans]

For those of us who have purchased Google Home (or an Amazon Echo device) within the past year, we are early adopters of voice activated hardware.

A firm called Global Market Insights estimates that the smart speaker market will grow from $ 400 million in 2016 to $ 13 billion by 2024 with shipments to reach 100 million by then.

Key to this growth will be easier and more intuitive set up of a smart home or office. Deeper integration between Google Home/Assistant and home appliances will be key. Google's integration with LG appliances is such an example. Also today I saw that Google Assistant is being integrated with Nvidia Shield TV (an Android TV). Sony Bravia will soon follow. I see the days of needing a remote control for managing TVs, etc are numbered. Voice activation (and probably soon gesture control) should become more prevalent.

 

[sesevans]

For those of us who have purchased Google Home (or an Amazon Echo device) within the past year, we are early adopters of voice activated hardware.

A firm called Global Market Insights estimates that the smart speaker market will grow from $ 400 million in 2016 to $ 13 billion by 2024 with shipments to reach 100 million by then.

Key to this growth will be easier and more intuitive set up of a smart home or office. Deeper integration between Google Home/Assistant and home appliances will be key. Google's integration with LG appliances is such an example. Also today I saw that Google Assistant is being integrated with Nvidia Shield TV (an Android TV). Sony Bravia will soon follow. I see the days of needing a remote control for managing TVs, etc are numbered. Voice activation (and probably soon gesture control) should become more prevalent.

Presto. Talking of "easier and more intuitive set up of a smart home or office"......this morning TechCrunch is revealing they expect Google to launch later this year or very early in 2018 a tabletop smart screen for video calling and more (they are not sure this will be announced on 4 October at Google's hardware launch of new Pixel phones and other Google hardware).

The device, which will act as a smart hub for connecting the smart home products including Nest, etc, will also feature YouTube, Google Assistant, Google Photos and video calling. Perhaps Netflix will be added. In the US, Google is exploring a partnership with BestBuy Geek Squad to enable home set up. Running a version of Android, it is likely that devs will be able to build apps for it quite easily.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/28/google-homescreen/

 

[valve90210]

I see the days of needing a remote control for managing TVs, etc are numbered. Voice activation (and probably soon gesture control) should become more prevalent.

But what if you don't want to have to be calling out instructions all the time? Personally, while I do love the whole integration of lighting, heating, devices etc etc, I'd much rather continue to have a remote control where I press one button and everything does what I want than to have to call out each time I want to do something. Don't get me wrong, I do like voice control at times, for example I'm always asking google to set timers for me when I'm cooking and things like that because it's very handy if my hands are dirty of I'm busy chopping ingredients etc but I'm not keen on the idea of constantly having to given verbal instructions.

I'm hoping there will be room for both remote and voice control for all these amazing integrated devices!

 

[sesevans]

But what if you don't want to have to be calling out instructions all the time? Personally, while I do love the whole integration of lighting, heating, devices etc etc, I'd much rather continue to have a remote control where I press one button and everything does what I want than to have to call out each time I want to do something. Don't get me wrong, I do like voice control at times, for example I'm always asking google to set timers for me when I'm cooking and things like that because it's very handy if my hands are dirty of I'm busy chopping ingredients etc but I'm not keen on the idea of constantly having to given verbal instructions.

I'm hoping there will be room for both remote and voice control for all these amazing integrated devices!

Excellent point and I agree. What would you think of gesture control as an option too? I see more sensor equipment in the smart home. Already your Nest Thermostat and your Nest cameras have them.

 

[valve90210]

Excellent point and I agree. What would you think of gesture control as an option too? I see more sensor equipment in the smart home. Already your Nest Thermostat and your Nest cameras have them.

I'm not too keen on gesture control either, if I'm laying on my sofa relaxing listening to music or watching a film, I don't want to be waving my arms about to pause it or chose something else, I'd rather just point my remote and press a button or two. I'm sure things have come on in leaps and bounds in the past few years but my experience of gesture control on the original Kinect was not very positive...

 

[sesevans]

I'm not too keen on gesture control either, if I'm laying on my sofa relaxing listening to music or watching a film, I don't want to be waving my arms about to pause it or chose something else, I'd rather just point my remote and press a button or two. I'm sure things have come on in leaps and bounds in the past few years but my experience of gesture control on the original Kinect was not very positive...

Interesting that following our conversation the other day, I see in the Telegraph today that they too are talking about the "End of the TV remote control" with gesture control. As you know I would like to see the remote replaced by either gesture or voice, or a combination of both. Seems that gesture is being worked on by a UK company too:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...uld-nigh-scientists-invent-technology-change/

 

[valve90210]

Interesting that following our conversation the other day, I see in the Telegraph today that they too are talking about the "End of the TV remote control" with gesture control. As you know I would like to see the remote replaced by either gesture or voice, or a combination of both. Seems that gesture is being worked on by a UK company too:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...uld-nigh-scientists-invent-technology-change/

That is quite interesting but personally for me I'd still rather have a good universal remote.

"Everyday objects in the house can now easily become remote controls so there are no more frantic searches for remote controls when your favourite programme is about to start on another channel, and now everyone in the room has the 'remote'.

"You could even change the channel with your pet cat."

I very seldom have a frantic search for the remote, it sits on it's charging dock and is always to hand. Everyone (or indeed as they suggested - the cat) having the remote just sounds like it could easily get really annoying if people disagreed with what they wanted to watch, or the volume etc...

 

[unwashed potato!]

That is quite interesting but personally for me I'd still rather have a good universal remote.

i think the remote control eventually will die. but not to be replaced by stupid voice control or gesture control. i mean who wants to shout out to a tv when in a house share. or with 5 other people, when i do ok google for my phone along people love to shout anything out before me, imagine a tv, Me: "ok google", friends "TURN ON PORN".

what will replace a remote is the phone. there's no reason why a phone can't become a proper fully featured remote for any tv/device. like with my chromecast, my phone is the remote and it's so much easier to get the programme from my phone and select it then it plays on the tv. there can be different ways to use the phone as a remote. have the playlist shown on the phone and watched on the tv, or the traditional style of showing the playlist on the tv, but the buttons are on the phone.

 

[valve90210]

i think the remote control eventually will die. but not to be replaced by stupid voice control or gesture control. i mean who wants to shout out to a tv when in a house share. or with 5 other people, when i do ok google for my phone along people love to shout anything out before me, imagine a tv, Me: "ok google", friends "TURN ON PORN".

what will replace a remote is the phone. there's no reason why a phone can't become a proper fully featured remote for any tv/device. like with my chromecast, my phone is the remote and it's so much easier to get the programme from my phone and select it then it plays on the tv. there can be different ways to use the phone as a remote. have the playlist shown on the phone and watched on the tv, or the traditional style of showing the playlist on the tv, but the buttons are on the phone.

I can see that might be the direction things go but even then I'd say I'd still rather have a good universal remote. In the past I've had a remote with a large touch screen and only a couple of hard buttons, and while it was great because eit gave the flexibility to create my own screens and buttons exactly as I wanted them, when it can to actually using it, it was a bit of a pain. For any task I had to look directly at the remote in order to see what I was doing be it turning on lights, pausing a film etc etc.

I actually moved from such a remote to a Harmony with way more hard buttons because in actual fact it was far more simple to use the hard buttons than the touchscreen. I still had a huge amount of power to get the remote doing what I wanted but the actual operation was a far more user friendly experience.

Moving towards using phone or tablet to control things again would, for me, be a step backward from where I am currently with a Harmony remote. Besides having to look at the screen constantly to operate it there would also be other annoyances which spring to mind immediately, for example having to unlock the screen every time I want to use it, wanting to use the phone to control the tv but being in the middle of a call or messaging someone or being on twitter etc etc. What about if there's more than one person in the room both trying to control the kit with their phone, who gets priority etc. It really does sound like a very less than ideal situation, for me the universal remote is still leagues ahead of using a phone for the majority of cases.

 

[unwashed potato!]

that's a good point about being able to use the remote without looking. i guess it's more of an issue when the tv is showing the playlist. if the phone is showing the playlist then a bit less of an issue, but i have to agree a good old fashioned buttoned remote will always be simpler.